America the Exceptional

The truth comes out (however unexpectedly)

2009-08-06T12:08:00.002-04:00

Paul Krugman, liberal economics professor and columnist for the New York Times, received an unexpected glimpse of how citizens of nations with national health care systems view their nation's health care system. The statement was clear, compelling, and profound, yet I'm quite certain Mr. Krugman's convictions remain unshaken.

Who do you value: Terrorists? Or the unborn?

2009-06-01T19:56:00.003-04:00

As we know, most Democrats are pro-choice, and most Democrats disapprove of the Bush administration's treatment of terrorist detainees. I find this disparity in views about the application of due process rights alarmingly inconsistent and illogical.

Lately we've seen liberals up in arms, foaming at the mouth about the mistreatment of the likes of KSM or Abu Zubaydah. Yet laws passed during the Bush administration lay out unprecedented rights of due process for the most vicious killers known to man: Vicious killers who gleefully violate every law and every right of man and nation-state. All detainees have the right to challenge their detention in federal court. They have numerous due process rights during their tribunal, and they have the right to appeal a tribunal's conviction. America has bathed our would-be murderers in a vast spa of Constitutional rights - the likes of which no honorable, law-abiding enemy POW ever received in any other American war.

Abortion is the arbitrary killing of an unborn innocent human being, who has been denied any due process rights.

I find it starkly amazing that anyone could find it deplorable that we might harm a single hair on a bloodthirsty terrorist's head without due process rights at every step, and yet they don't bat an eye when we de-brain a viable fetus in the birth canal. Do you suppose that that fetus wanted to have its skull punctured? It's brain vacuumed out? Shouldn't we at least hold a single little hearing - to determine if the health/convenience of the mother overrides the baby's right to life?

Liberals: Can we please have a little consistency here?

China exposed

2009-05-27T08:37:00.005-04:00

President Obama has a tremendous opportunity to press for positive developments in North Korea.

At the present time, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak have taken a hard-line approach to North Korea, denying Kim Jong Il their previous implicit support, and thus removing Kim's Western diplomatic cover. In fact, just yesterday, President Bak confirmed South Korea's no-nonsense approach to the the North by joining the Proliferation Security Initiative, in which North Korean vessels will be boarded and WMD materials seized.

With North Korea's Western support evaporated, China now finds itself the lone supporter of that rogue state, and thus diplomatically isolated. According to China expert Gordon G. Chang (writing in Forbes), "the Chinese have defied Washington when they had company [Western diplomatic cover] but were almost always cooperative when they did not."

Now is the time for Obama to bring change to our North Korea policy. Instead of wasting time in the failure that is the "Six Party Talks," Obama has a unique opportunity to use U.S. economic and diplomatic pressure to induce China to put the brakes on North Korea's nuclear weapons program. While he's at it, he can urge China to pressure Kim into making various social reforms in the North as well.

I'm not holding my breath.

Act now or forever hold your peace

2009-04-07T16:31:00.010-04:00

The Western World is on the cusp of losing the initiative in the struggle against violent radical Islam. With today's revelations detailing China's secret efforts to help Iran obtain a nuclear bomb, we are reminded that we have months before Iran crosses the nuclear threshold. When that moment passes, Western nations will lose any and all significant tools in their arsenal for effectively restraining Iran and Iran's proxy armies.

As it is now, the West hardly employs any diplomatic muscle at all. We fail to stiffen existing economic sanctions or impose new ones. We refuse to increase pressure on the Russians (or Chinese) who assist Iran's nuclear program and provide legal and diplomatic cover for their ally. European states are unwilling or incapable of restricting their own trade with Iran. President Obama is so accommodating to the Mullahs, he's gutting our missile defense capability (a decision which is incidentally a slap in the face of our ally, Poland), and the U.S. pressures Israel to use a self-defeating "restraint" when provoked militarily by Iran's proxies Hezbollah and Hamas.

The West behaves in this submissive manner even before Iran acquires the bomb! At this point, Iran's bargaining position should be at its weakest: They don't yet have the bomb, their allies are exposed, and they're suffering limited anti-government insurrections. Despite this, we've exhausted our supply of carrots to offer the madmen of Tehran, and we've precluded any use of sticks. Clearly, the West has needlessly and counterproductively resigned itself to living with a nuclear-armed Iran, and all the fun that comes with that. Who are the madmen now?

In a few months, perhaps up to a year, Iran will announce that it has enough highly enriched uranium to produce a nuclear bomb. Shortly thereafter, they'll test a nuclear device, much like North Korea did in 2006. Even now, Iran is essentially free to do as it pleases. The West simply lacks the will to restrain it. With the bomb in its possession, Iran will be free to populate the entire planet with terror cells, undermine Iraq, Lebannon, and Pakistan, kill Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, and provoke wars in Israel - and the West will only be able to watch from afar and hope nothing cataclysmic occurs.

In the meantime, Sunni Arab states (Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.) will suddenly find it in their national interest to arm themselves with their own nuclear deterrent. This will provoke a nuclear arms race among the biggest terror sponsoring states in the world.

Geopolitically, this strengthens the hand of our adversaries in Russia and China, who have already pulled off a similar coup in North Korea. The West is increasingly becoming a passive actor on the world stage, and the world stage is becoming a truly dangerous place - far more dangerous than we've ever seen. No longer do massive superpowers checkmate each others' deadly nuclear arsenals. Now, every rogue state in the world is increasingly more free to obtain their own nuclear arsenals - exponentially increasing the odds that one day, soon, a nuclear attack will occur.

Given this, I cannot imagine how a simple U.S. or Israeli surgical strike against Iran's nuclear facilities - even a partially successful strike - could be worse than doing nothing.

Obama: Traitor to Environmentalism?

2009-03-26T15:38:00.005-04:00

With the global economy now spiraling down to the depths of severe recession, and with manufacturing and other industrial activity declining, surely the West is now on the right track to meet our Kyoto goals and permanently reduce our national carbon footprints! Environmentalists rejoice!

After all, it was Obama himself who once decried the criminal fact that although Americans constitute only 4% of the global population, we consume 25% of the earth's resources. Well voila! We're now finally on the path to correcting that abomination!

But what is this? Obama is now spending trillions of dollars with the hope of stimulating economic growth? Doesn't he realize that by doing so, we'll only reverse our environmental gains and return to our previous evil ways of mass consumption?

Don't worry. Even if our economy rebounds to pre-September 2008 levels, Obama will institute his promised carbon cap and trade system. That should steer us toward a greener future. However, it'll raise your utility bills by 15-30%. It will cost the federal government up to $1.9 trillion, just for the programs first 8 years (tax increase, anyone?). Lastly, cap and trade will cost up to 2.3 million jobs by 2015.

I suppose this is the change we all wanted...

What does this mean? Honestly!

2009-03-25T11:24:00.002-04:00

The Obama Pentagon has decided to drop the phrase "War on Terror" as a moniker to describe our ongoing and deadly global conflict against Islamic radicalism. In its place, the president has decided on a new name: the "Overseas Contingency Operation."

Just what the hell does that mean? I certainly hope that name doesn't confuse Pentagon planners, who no doubt deal with myriad other "overseas contingency operations" (i.e. possible future conflicts with China, Russia, North Korea, etc). Couldn't our president have picked something easier to remember, and more to the point, like "Operation Pacify," or "Operation Appeasement?"

The politics of old lives on

2009-02-05T21:21:00.007-05:00

Tonight America heard President Barack Obama continue and extend the very politics he eschewed and denounced during the '08 campaign. Throughout that campaign, Obama attacked President Bush for using the politics of fear to make his case in the War on Terror. Obama derided what he saw as Bush's use of fear mongering and scare tactics to defend the war in Iraq, as well as the prison at Guantanamo Bay and warrantless wiretapping of suspected terrorists. In effect, Obama accused Bush of saying: "If you don't support the war - or this or that policy - then you want the terrorists to succeed."

You may well believe that Bush was guilty as charged - guilty of fear mongering. But if that is so, how is President Obama not guilty of resorting to precisely the same tactics to defend the Stimulus Bill? As he has done many times recently, Obama repeated his threat against the U.S. economy tonight. Said he: "If we do not move swiftly to sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, [our] economy... will be faced with catastrophe." In other words: if you don't support this stimulus bill - as it's written - then you must want the economy to suffer a catastrophe (all evidence to the contrary of Obama's argument notwithstanding).

How refreshing! How nice it is to know that Barack Obama has delivered change we can all believe in...

Mark his words

2009-02-04T15:28:00.005-05:00

"When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry."

-Dick Cheney (reacting to Obama's abandonment of Bush Administration anti-terrorism policies, 2/3/09)

How fitting...

2009-02-03T13:52:00.006-05:00

Photo: Drudge

I can't wait for someone, anyone, to mention the irony of the downfall of the Tom Daschle nomination - for purely nonpolitical reasons - given the number of Bush Administration nominees Daschle personally either obstructed or killed when he was Senate majority leader (for political or other irrelevant reasons).

Indeed I heard not a single Republican Senator object to the nomination of any Obama appointee on political grounds. Has any Obama appointee been given the Ashcroft treatment? Not one. Has any nomination been held up by Republicans for reasons of pure partisanship (i.e. Miguel Estrada)? Not one.

It seems to me that the Democrats could learn a lesson in bipartisanship from the GOP.

Obama "dresses down" the Presidency

2009-02-02T13:21:00.009-05:00

Photo: UPI

The Presidency of the United States of America is our nation's highest and most revered institution. It is a symbol of American greatness and might. Its occupant is not only our head of government, he is the head of state. In electing Barack Obama to the Presidency, the American People have "loaned" him their sovereign power, and vested him with the solemn duty to govern our land and protect our beloved country.

In recognition of the solemnity of the high office, presidential appearances are traditionally accompanied by the magnificent songs "Hail to the Chief," and "Stars and Stripes Forever." "Stars and Stripes," in particular, traditionally symbolizes and celebrates the military aspect of the Presidency; the president is America's Commander in Chief - this is not an insignificant role.

Alas, now comes President Barack Obama, bearing "change!" According to CBS News, Obama wears business casual dress in the sacred Oval Office - something presidents Bush and Reagan never did - such was their reverence for the office they were privileged to occupy. Obama has also scrapped formal announcements of his arrival, and simply "shows up" at the podium and says, "hello everybody. Good to see ya!" How very dignified...

Adding to this classlessness, Obama has dropped "Hail to the Chief" and the various traditional Sousa marches, and is now preceded at public events by piano renditions of such gems as "Desert Rose," by Sting, of all people!

This may seem "hip" and "cool" to younger Americans, but the Presidency is anything but hip and cool. It is the highest aspiration of any American. President Obama is our head of state - a symbol of the greatness of our beloved nation. He is not the CEO of some L.A. record label.

The American People have invested a great deal in this man, and he is revered by millions. He should show some class and start recognizing the dignity of the office that he is privileged to occupy.

A little poetry....

2009-01-28T02:51:00.004-05:00

As a brief respite from politics, here is a little poem I just typed up (I am not into poetry, by any means). Too much coffee, I suppose... It's a work in progress. Enjoy!

"Youth"

We thought our youth
Would last forever;
Life was but joy
T’would always be better.

While no dark cloud
Would last too long;
Tomorrow would dawn
When today was gone.

Each choice we made
Determined our fate;
We thought we had
Eternity to wait.

Until it came,
That woeful day;
Mortality showed
T’was here to stay.

We thought that life
Was just a game;
Until reality laid
That myth to shame.

Burdened by truth
That we now know:
Ariseth the sun
Then falleth the snow.

We’ll make the most
Of time that God gave,
‘Tween pleasure of youth
And dust of the grave.

Will life be lived
For God and for man;
In service to others
Each day that we can?

Or will we fail
To live a good life;
And spend all our days
In toil and strife?

The lesson I learned
While still in my youth;
Was that God is the way
His word is the truth.

When that day Death
Does call out my name;
I’ll hold my head high
Not cower in shame.

Into the grave
Our forms will be thrown;
And that is the lesson
Of this little poem.

President Bush - Farewell Address

2009-01-15T20:42:00.001-05:00

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THIS WILL COST LIVES

2009-01-06T10:32:00.004-05:00

Word of two significant Obama appointments has by now been leaked to the press. Barack Obama will appoint former Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta to head the CIA, and retired Admiral Dennis Blair to head the National Security Agency. Blair has a controversial history as head of the military's Pacific Command, and little intelligence gathering experience. Panetta has none.

So what do we make of these appointments? First of all, even die-hard liberals such as Sen. Diane Feinstein are questioning Panetta's appointment, due to concerns over his utter lack of experience. The purpose of these unexpected appointments is to symbolize a break from Bush Administration policies. As one AP article put it: "Harsh interrogations, waterboarding and extraordinary renditions ... and warrantless wiretapping are over."

FACT: The above mentioned intelligence-gathering methods - controversial though they may be - have uncovered pending terrorist plots and foiled them before they could be executed. In other words, the methods that President-elect Obama plans to scrap have saved lives. Here and abroad. Had it not been for the above mentioned techniques, we would never have known of the trans-Atlantic airliner bombing plot that would have surpassed the death toll of 9/11, among dozens of other attacks. Had it not been for waterboarding (which never harmed or killed a single person), Kalid Sheikh Mohammed would have taken his secrets - and the details of the 9/11 plot - to his grave.

The point is this: The intelligence gathering techniques that Obama plans to scrap save lives. Eliminating them will cost lives.

* * *

It looks like we're heading back to the peaceful days of innocence of the 90's, when we neutered our intelligence services and turned a blind eye to ominous and developing threats that were growing off our shores. What we forget about those threats is that while we were busy turning our blind eyes, those threats had already reached our shores in the form of one Mohammed Atta and his 18 friends - armed with cash and box-cutters.

Here we go again.

Bush's benevolence

2008-12-14T16:55:00.002-05:00

In Iraq today, an Iraqi news reporter threw both of his shoes at President Bush, who was attending a press conference with President al-Maliki. Fortunately, both shoes missed Bush, who later joked that the shoes had been a size 10.

Here's the video:

I find it ironic that the purpose for President Bush's surprise visit to Baghdad was to bid farewell to the almost thirty million Iraqis for whom his nation sacrificed so mightily to liberate. The man just can't get no love, can he?

Does anyone doubt that were Saddam still in power, this "journalist" would have been tortured and executed by now?

Thank you, John McCain

2008-11-05T11:34:00.005-05:00

Although I lacked the whole-hearted support for John McCain that I felt towards President Bush in 2004, I voted for John McCain enthusiastically, yesterday. He was not my first choice as a Republican candidate, but he probably was the best candidate we could have nominated under the circumstances; and I must admit, I did admire him, and gladly embraced his platform of reform.

Bill Kristol said it best in his final pre-election column in the NYT, "we conservatives will greet the news [of Obama's victory] with our usual resolute stoicism or cheerful fatalism." And such is the case. Though disappointed, we are not surprised or depressed. We move now into the role of the loyal opposition, and we intend to live up to that name.

Before I get into the new role of the GOP, let me reflect on McCain's concession speech of last night, which I found quite moving.

I was surprised to find myself watching McCain transform instantly from defeated candidate, to the narrator of the story of what unfolded last night - namely a staggering achievement in the Civil Rights struggle in America. McCain told the American People that Obama's ascendancy signaled a great moment in the struggle of African Americans to achieve racial equality in America. It marks a day of normacly in race relations in this land. I was moved by this, and proud of my country. I was proud of the way McCain, in his moment of defeat, rallied his countrymen behind the historic new president-elect.

It proved that McCain, unlike so many of his colleagues, is an adult - a man.

If any man can be said to have "earned" the Presidency, it truly is John McCain. His service in war, his voluntary suffering for his country on behalf of his fellow countrymen, and his dedication and bipartisan service in the United States Congress have at least qualified him for the office. Having now been declined for that honor, McCain proved his mettle by telling Americans that all is well. No man is entitled to the Presidency, and McCain is not at all bitter, but rather even more proud of his country after this experience. He's proud and quite content to have the honor of serving the country he loves in any capacity.

America is a better country, because of the unselfish service of soldier and citizen John McCain.

Obama will bankrupt the coal industry.

2008-11-02T12:45:00.009-05:00

On January 17 of this year, Barack Obama explained his carbon cap and trade scheme to the San Francisco Chronicle. In a recorded interview, he explained that under his plan, "every unit of carbon... would be charged to the polluter." He concluded this statement with the following quote:

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.

In other words, Obama will essentially outlaw an entire industry that provides half of America's electrical power. How do you suppose that this will affect your energy rates? How will this play out in Pennsylvania and West Virginia? Why hasn't the mainstream media caught onto this? (as if I even need to ask)

Bring up Obama's associations!

2008-10-15T12:23:00.005-04:00

There's one thing I want to see at tonight's presidential debate: McCain needs to take off his gloves and give it to Obama! I think McCain can still win the election if he doesn't take this advice, but I think he can really turn the tables by talking to America about Barack Obama's relationships with Rev. Wright in particular, but Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn as well.

Unless McCain can raise doubt in Americans' minds about Obama, I don't see how he can close the gap in the polls.

Jesse Jackson rides again!

2008-10-15T11:43:00.003-04:00

By vast majorities in virtually every poll, Americans overwhelmingly support Israel. For instance, among Americans who closely follow international issues, 66% support Israel. Only 11% (!) support the Palestinians. Inarguably, this is because, for all it's faults, Israel is a progressive, modern democracy that values life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Throughout her difficult 60 years, Israel has been invaded 4 times and is constantly under terrorist attack. Americans can sympathize with such a state, and such a people...

Now alas, comes Barack Obama, bringing change! According to Obama's long-time friend Jesse Jackson, an Obama administration will "fundamentally change" America's Middle East policy. Said Jackson, "decades of putting Israel's interests first" are over. Why will Obama eviscerate America's long-standing friendship with Israel? Because we need to undo the policies of the "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades."

That is simply amazing. Amazingly anti-Semitic, that is. It reminds me of Holocaust-denier President Ahmadinejad of Iran, who at his recent UN speech decried the "deceitful Zionists" who control US foreign policy as well as the international financial system. But hey! I suppose Jesse Jackson simply wanted Mr. Ahmadinejad to feel welcome on his visit to "Hymietown."

Remind me again: Why do American Jews support Barack Obama?

Never has America...

2008-10-15T10:47:00.004-04:00

Barack Obama is running for the Presidency of the United States - not by virtue of his experience (which he stunningly lacks) - but because of his supposed high-mindedness and good judgement. I would submit that never before has America elected anyone to the Presidency with so little experience and such a history of questionable and unwise decisions.

Barack Obama is a bona fide, died in the wool left-wing ideologue, whose ideology serves as a substitute for the benefits of practical experience. His economic advisers - mostly academics - similarly lack real experience, and their economic theories and formulations are abhorrent to most business leaders. Nowhere on earth has an economic policy that entails the vast redistribution of wealth ever worked. Ask the Europeans, who are currently in the midst of one of the biggest supply-side economic movements in modern European history. Why would we take a leap of faith into socialism at this critical point?

A word about Barack Obama's associations: They're relevant not because Obama would appoint the likes of Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, or Louis Farrakhan to a cabinet post - but because those are the people whose company he keeps. He shares their views of America. Why the hell would he go to great lengths to seek them out as friends and mentors if he passionately opposed their deepest-held convictions?

How many of you have attended a church where the pastor spews hatred of America and white people, and considered that pastor to be your spiritual mentor? Would you stay there for 20 years? How many of you would bring your own impressionable children into such a den of bile?

How many of you find the Rev. Louis Farrakhan to be mostly unobjectionable? How about Father Phlager? Remember, Farrakhan is the guy who, while having tea with his friend Saddam Hussein, condemned America as the "Great Satan." Will Americans elect his ideological student to the Presidency?

Obama's defense for his dalliance with Black Liberation Theologists, Black Supremacists, Socialists, America-haters, and defiant, sadistic terrorists (Ayers and his wife), is that those people are power players in Chicago Democratic politics, who cannot be avoided if one is to succeed there. If that is true, then what does it say about Obama's ambition? Will he not do virtually anything for the benefit of his own career? Do you want him as leader of the free world?

A word about Obama's friend, Bernadine Dohrn, wife of Bill Ayers: How many of you, upon learning of the Tate/LaBianca murders (Charles Manson) responded with: "Dig it! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim's stomach! Wild!" She said that before 400 people. This is to say nothing of Ayer's and Dohrn's own actions. They both personally took part in the bombings of government and private buildings - some of them fatal. She and her darling husband have never recanted and never apologized for their actions or statements.

We've already been told by Obama that he had no idea that his pastor of 20 years was a radical anti-American zealot who preached hate regularly from the pulpit. Are we now to believe that he had no idea that Ayers and Dohrn are unrepentant anti-American terrorists, and that Ayers himself told the New York Times on - of all days - September 11, 2001, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."?

This, in my mind, is enough to disqualify anyone from presidential electability. I'll post later on his atrocious policy proposals, and why America has never elected someone so far to the left, especially at a time when leftist policies would so severely damage an already precarious state of affairs.

Whatever happened to Ethics Reform?

2008-10-08T12:13:00.005-04:00

Does anyone recall that "Ethics Reform" was a major Democratic talking point in the 2006 election campaign? There were days when that's all Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, et al could talk about, leading up to their congressional sweep.

Well I for one am a bit confused. If the Democrats are so concerned about ethical behavior, why is it that not one single Democrat expressed concern about Congressman Charlie Rangel's tax evasions? Rangel, who chairs the tax writing House Committee on Ways and Means, failed to report and pay taxes on rental income on a Dominican Republic beachfront villa he owns. He also admitted the mortgage he secured to finance the property was interest free.

Further clouding the ethical waters for Democrats is Congressman Barney Frank's "relationship" with Fannie Mae. At a time when Fannie was flooding the financial system with bad mortgages lent to applicants who could not afford to pay them, Barney Frank was having an affair with Herb Moses, a Fannie Mae executive who was directly involved in the development of the so-called "toxic" loans that are currently dissolving our financial system. In the 1990's, Moses was working to relax federal regulations on the mortgage industry while at the same time sleeping with the ranking member (now chairman) of the House Finance Committee.

Not one Democrat is concerned about that apparent conflict...

Just when Democrats' ethical behavior can't get much worse, we find out on the Drudge Report today that Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), on handing Mitt Romney an earpiece she had used in an interview on MSNBC, told him, "I spit on this before I put it in." According to the report on Politico.com, she spoke these words to Romney with a "sweet smile" on her face. Romney is a private citizen! Is not one single Democrat embarrassed by this childish behavior by an elected U.S. Senator?

It took the Congressional GOP 12 years in the majority to sink its ethical standards to the abysmal level we see the Democratic Majority engaged in today. The Dems have been in control for less than 2 years...

What a waste!

2008-10-08T12:09:00.001-04:00

Photo: Adam Nagourney, New York Times

At this point, with the momentum in this campaign clearly headed in Obama's direction, I expected McCain to take the fight to his opponent - relentlessly criticizing Obama's record and rebutting the numerous questionable points he made throughout this debate. McCain had other plans. He apparently decided that a town hall format wasn't the appropriate venue for such a clash. I can't count how many golden opportunities to pummel Obama fell into McCain's lap. He declined each opportunity, frequently digressing into his same old monologue about duty, honor, etc. He's been there, done that already. That won't help him at this point in the race. He would have been better served by slamming Obama as inexperienced and naive.

McCain was right to point out repeatedly that Obama has never challenged his own party leadership, but that fact alone won't win votes - nor persuade Obama voters to stay home. On the other hand, trashing the singular basis for Obama's candidacy - his so-called decision-making ability, by bringing up his devious relationships with Ayers, Wright, etc. will.

McCain too often reverted to the lazy comfort of talking points, when he should have taken the initiative and skewered Obama on spending, taxes, meeting with dictators, etc. I noticed a couple of times where McCain began to tread into this territory (i.e. "you'll raise taxes on small business"), but not in the context of a major, anger-driven knockout punch that might have closed the gap in the polls.

McCain's mediocre and frankly, boring performance in debate #2 will not help him. If anything, it may hurt him, as Obama, the young and inexperienced newcomer, has easily weathered McCain's second-to-last chance to sink him. If McCain doesn't destroy Obama in the third and final debate, he may as well go back home to Arizona and start writing his concession speech.

VP Debate Moderator Biased? Surprise!

2008-10-02T07:33:00.006-04:00

Gwen Ifill, who moderated the 2004 Vice Presidential debate and will moderate tonight's VP debate has authored a pro-Obama book that is set to be released on Inauguration Day. That she is biased in favor of the Democratic ticket was clearly evident in her treatment of VP Cheney in 2004. No one should be surprised that she's biased. We weren't going to get a non-partisan moderator unless Jim Lehrer or someone from FOX News stepped in (and God knows the Obama campaign would have allowed that to happen over its dead body).

So we're stuck with a moderator who's in the tank for the Obama campaign. There is one benefit to the fact of Ifill's impending book release: the public (which already knows the media is biased) will be well aware of the political leaning and motivations of Gwen Ifill. If her bias has any effect at all, it might just help Palin more than it hurts her. In any event, I hope she's prepared.

UPDATE:

Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review apparently concurs with my rather astute analysis (ahem). Check out her posting on "The Corner" at National Review Online.

Oil drilling ban will expire!

2008-09-25T09:35:00.002-04:00

On October 1, 2008, the long-standing ban on offshore drilling, as well as the ban on shale-oil drilling will expire! Democrats apparently attempted to sneak a continuation of the ban into a continuing spending resolution for Fiscal Year 2009. President Bush threatened to veto any such legislation if it contained the drilling ban. Such a veto would have shut down the federal government. Faced with being blamed for shutting down the government over their truly unpopular support of the drilling ban, Democratic leadership in Congress buckled and passed a continuing resolution without the ban!

The legalization of offshore drilling as well as shale drilling should have a significant effect on the oil futures market, as speculators are now confronted with the prospect of a significant increase in oil supply in the near future. When President Bush lifted the executive ban on drilling, the price of a barrel dropped by almost $10 virtually overnight. Now that Congress has apparently lifted the last obstacle to drilling, it's hard to imagine that the price of oil will not plummet even further.

Drill baby, drill!

God Bless America

2008-09-11T19:58:00.007-04:00

Seven years ago this morning, I couldn't find a decent song on the preset stations on my car radio, as I drove to my morning class: Issues in World Politics. I switched to the local AM talker, and heard the news that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. At class, our professor, a man of Middle Eastern descent, announced that class was cancelled for the day. I drove home to my apartment with a classmate friend, and we watched the events of 9/11/2001 unfold live before us on TV.

My life changed forever that morning, as I know it did for so many other millions of Americans. Every September 11, I watch the ceremonies on TV, marking the moments of the plane crashes and the corresponding moments of silence. I always cry as I watch and hear the reading of the names at Ground Zero. Always. It's truly overwhelming. I vividly remember that day, and that week. I'll never forget watching President Bush talking with Governor Pataki and Mayor Giuliani from the Oval Office. After his chat, he spoke with the assembled reporters. One reporter asked the president what he was thinking. Tears immediately welled up in his eyes, and he said:

Well, I don't think about myself right now. I think about the families, the children. I am a loving guy, and I am also someone, however, who has got a job to do - and I intend to do it. And this is a terrible moment.

He then began to cry, and left the Oval Office. In that single moment of honesty, of heartfelt truth, George W. Bush captured the feelings of grief and resolve of all the American People. I have loved that man ever since, and always will. I never cried, really, before those days. But while watching the National Memorial Service at the National Cathedral in Washington, I cried openly during the singing of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I always do that now. In fact, it's hard not to shed a tear or two at the sound of any patriotic song.

It's not hard for a patriotic American to feel that way about his country. I recognize that America isn't perfect. We've made our mistakes. But our country is a shining city on a hill - a beacon of light and hope for so many millions of others. We've done so much - at so great a cost - and asked so little in return. This is a direct reflection of the fundamental goodness of the American People. It was those honest, decent, humble people who were so viciously attacked that morning seven years ago. That memory will always enrage me, and I will never forget it. I will always remember that the best of America was demonstrated in those days. I will always cling to the memory of a Great People, who had suffered so terrible and undeserved a blow, but who rose to the occasion, and made me so deeply proud of and in love with America. I am and will forever be, proud to be an American.

Obama concedes tax increases hurt economy

2008-09-08T10:09:00.002-04:00

The Bush tax cuts expire in 2010.

FOX News is reporting that Barack Obama is promising to temporarily extend the Bush tax cuts if the US economy is in a recession as of their expiration date. Ultimately, he intends to let the tax cuts expire, but not while the economy is "fragile."

This is a blunt admission that a tax increase would be harmful to the economy - yet that is precisely what he's going to do. He says he won't do it unless he feels the economy is strong enough to absorb the blow he intends to inflict. How comforting.